ESRI Shapefile Status

[David Lockwood]

Hey Guys...I was wondering if anyone is working on the Shapefile code for the next release? If not, I was going to take a stab at it.

Dave

[geodan]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(David Lockwood &#064; Apr 10 2006, 10&#58;38 AM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
Hey Guys...I was wondering if anyone is working on the Shapefile code for the next release? If not, I was going to take a stab at it.

Dave
[/b][/quote]

What are you going to do, create a GUI for all of the symbology options in the XML file?

(that would be great&#33

[withak]

It would be good if you could make WW not leap up to ~900 MB of RAM usage after turning a shapefile layer on and off as well. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]

[geodan]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(withak &#064; Apr 10 2006, 02&#58;21 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
It would be good if you could make WW not leap up to ~900 MB of RAM usage after turning a shapefile layer on and off as well. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]
[/b][/quote]

Yeah...and also...pull a rabbit out of your hat, while sawing someone in half...ha.

Dan

[withak]

Also, WW should make my coffee in the morning, and pick out something for me to wear.

[bull]

You dont have the coffee plug-in?

[David Lockwood]

Wiseguys, I tell ya...so, I guess that&#39;s a &#39;no&#39;, nobody is working on it? [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]

I&#39;ll see what I can do about that coffee plugin, as well as that valet plugin...you can start holding your breath right now [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif[/img]

Dave

[James_In_Utah]

Seriously though, I have lots of ESRI shapes to load, and have some requests if anyone is actually working this for the next release. I have about 500 shapes, all spread out around the Cont. US. I would love to be able to turn them on and off in groups, or turn all on, or turn all off. It would also be very helpful if they didn&#39;t all come up checked at the beginning. The top layer isn&#39;t checked, but if I do check it then all of the shapes under there are checked and they all start loading. That can take a while to load on a laptop. It takes a long time to go down the list unchecking them also. That&#39;s just my two cents...

Please see my bug posted at:
Shapefile sublayer problem
Thanks,
James



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(David Lockwood &#064; Apr 10 2006, 01&#58;47 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
Wiseguys, I tell ya...so, I guess that&#39;s a &#39;no&#39;, nobody is working on it? [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]

I&#39;ll see what I can do about that coffee plugin, as well as that valet plugin...you can start holding your breath right now [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif[/img]

Dave
[/b][/quote]

[geodan]

Well...I know it is possible to render shapefiles efficiently over the terrain...because Skyline&#39;s TerraExplorer Pro does it very well.

The most complaints from my "users", is how "manual" the process is to load a shapefile. It would be a big help to be able to choose colors, line thicknesses, etc, from a little GUI...similar to that of ArcView 3.x. Then, we could easily load a shapefile through the interface, rather than through an XML file.

Anyone have any news on what is up with the shapefile loader? I don&#39;t want to start trying to build a GUI for shapefile symbology, if the developers already have something on the go....

Dan

[David Lockwood]

Yes, that&#39;s what I meant, about not having to run a shapefile through a manual conversion process and also having GIS style layer management, line thicknesses, textures/colors in polygons and things like that. Looking through the shapefile code, some big blocks are commented out, which made me think it was work in progress so that&#39;s why I asked in the first place (coffee, valet and rabbit plugins are coming RSN [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]

From what I&#39;ve gathered in previous posts on this forum, adding thousands of icons as individual &#39;renderable objects&#39; chokes the system...has anyone tried making a point-list as a single renderable object? Polygons would have to be meshes...and if you want line thicknesses, so would lines...any 3D lines I&#39;ve ever seen were actually like tubes. The only other possiblility I see is rendering the GIS objects to bitmapped tiles on the fly...it&#39;s a possibility anyway. I want the objects to be clickable though, so I can get that &#39;clickable action url&#39; thing going.

A GUI would be a necessity...I was thinking more like the way Photoshop&#39;s &#39;layers&#39; work...with an eyeball for &#39;visible&#39;, right-click for properties etc? Something else would be to save the &#39;state&#39; so the next time you start WW, it returns to where you left it. Also &#39;Workspaces&#39;...so you can save layersets as 1 object and open the &#39;workspace&#39; again.

(I know...I can hear the shots...&#39;why doesn&#39;t he just buy Arc/Info and leave us alone&#39; [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]

Lots to think about, anyway&#33;

Dave

(P.S.: Sorry James_in_Utah...don&#39;t have any ideas on how you could fix that problem)

D

[geodan]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(David Lockwood &#064; Apr 11 2006, 12&#58;28 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
Yes, that&#39;s what I meant, about not having to run a shapefile through a manual conversion process and also having GIS style layer management, line thicknesses, textures/colors in polygons and things like that. Looking through the shapefile code, some big blocks are commented out, which made me think it was work in progress so that&#39;s why I asked in the first place (coffee, valet and rabbit plugins are coming RSN [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]

From what I&#39;ve gathered in previous posts on this forum, adding thousands of icons as individual &#39;renderable objects&#39; chokes the system...has anyone tried making a point-list as a single renderable object? Polygons would have to be meshes...and if you want line thicknesses, so would lines...any 3D lines I&#39;ve ever seen were actually like tubes. The only other possiblility I see is rendering the GIS objects to bitmapped tiles on the fly...it&#39;s a possibility anyway. I want the objects to be clickable though, so I can get that &#39;clickable action url&#39; thing going.

A GUI would be a necessity...I was thinking more like the way Photoshop&#39;s &#39;layers&#39; work...with an eyeball for &#39;visible&#39;, right-click for properties etc? Something else would be to save the &#39;state&#39; so the next time you start WW, it returns to where you left it. Also &#39;Workspaces&#39;...so you can save layersets as 1 object and open the &#39;workspace&#39; again.

(I know...I can hear the shots...&#39;why doesn&#39;t he just buy Arc/Info and leave us alone&#39; [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]

Lots to think about, anyway&#33;

Dave
[/b][/quote]

No, i agree, the more GIS capable WorldWind is, the more it separates it from "the others" (google earth)...etc. Some day, I want to create a line of sight tool, and perhaps a viewshed tool...something that takes advantage of the terrain (although, unless we can load in higher resolution terrain data, it probably won&#39;t be of much use).

Dan

[David Lockwood]

I hear you about the terrain data...I&#39;ve been experimenting with GTopo30...I know SRTM is a superior product but...it&#39;s not as conveniently bundled up for downloading. Need a &#39;GetElevationAtPoint&#39; function to fix the GIS stuff going behind the tiles and things like that. Of course, from all of this, we&#39;ll have to generate a nice &#39;Atlas&#39; add-on [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]

I agree...WW needs to separate itself more from &#39;Greedle Earth&#39;...of course, if we do something spiffy with GIS and WW, they&#39;ll probably just go buy ESRI and incorporate it into theirs [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif[/img]

D

[geodan]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(David Lockwood &#064; Apr 11 2006, 03&#58;57 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
I hear you about the terrain data...I&#39;ve been experimenting with GTopo30...I know SRTM is a superior product but...it&#39;s not as conveniently bundled up for downloading. Need a &#39;GetElevationAtPoint&#39; function to fix the GIS stuff going behind the tiles and things like that. Of course, from all of this, we&#39;ll have to generate a nice &#39;Atlas&#39; add-on [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]

I agree...WW needs to separate itself more from &#39;Greedle Earth&#39;...of course, if we do something spiffy with GIS and WW, they&#39;ll probably just go buy ESRI and incorporate it into theirs [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif[/img]

D
[/b][/quote]

Oh speaking of ESRI, the new ArcGIS Explorer should be coming out soon...which is a 3D application, which is supposed to have considerable GIS capability...at least when it comes to spatial queries against WMS maps. I&#39;m not sure if they let you load local shapefiles into it...but it&#39;s supposed to be a free program. I don&#39;t think they would "give" away anything with more analytical capabilities...so perhaps that is a niche for WorldWind (measure tool which we have, line of sight, viewshed, best path analysis...etc)...once everyone exhausts the "fun stuff" plugins...then maybe people will turn their sights into attacking some considerable GIS functionality...

then again...maybe turtles will rule the earth one day...

[KoS]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(geodan &#064; Apr 11 2006, 04&#58;02 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(David Lockwood &#064; Apr 11 2006, 03&#58;57 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
I hear you about the terrain data...I&#39;ve been experimenting with GTopo30...I know SRTM is a superior product but...it&#39;s not as conveniently bundled up for downloading. Need a &#39;GetElevationAtPoint&#39; function to fix the GIS stuff going behind the tiles and things like that. Of course, from all of this, we&#39;ll have to generate a nice &#39;Atlas&#39; add-on [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img]

I agree...WW needs to separate itself more from &#39;Greedle Earth&#39;...of course, if we do something spiffy with GIS and WW, they&#39;ll probably just go buy ESRI and incorporate it into theirs [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif[/img]

D
[/b][/quote]

Oh speaking of ESRI, the new ArcGIS Explorer should be coming out soon...which is a 3D application, which is supposed to have considerable GIS capability...at least when it comes to spatial queries against WMS maps. I&#39;m not sure if they let you load local shapefiles into it...but it&#39;s supposed to be a free program. I don&#39;t think they would "give" away anything with more analytical capabilities...so perhaps that is a niche for WorldWind (measure tool which we have, line of sight, viewshed, best path analysis...etc)...once everyone exhausts the "fun stuff" plugins...then maybe people will turn their sights into attacking some considerable GIS functionality...

then again...maybe turtles will rule the earth one day...
[/b][/quote]

If there past products is any indication. You should be to add local data, without streaming it in through a WMS.

IIRR, I read somewhere, there will be limited analysis functions in ArcGIS Explorer.

And according to this link, http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/explorer/index.html ,it would seem the above is true.










KoS

[5of0]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(geodan &#064; Apr 11 2006, 01&#58;02 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
so perhaps that is a niche for WorldWind (measure tool which we have, line of sight, viewshed, best path analysis...etc)
[/b][/quote]
In layman&#39;s terms, what kind of tools would these require? What&#39;s your vision?
(Not that I&#39;m committing to anything, just too curious for my own good.)